Music
Brentano Quartet @ Libby Gardner Hall 12.04
The evening turned out to be one of my favorite so far of the season, performing selections from Purcell’s Fantasia, and two-string quartet works by Beethoven. The performers took me on a whirlwind of an adventure that brought to mind imagery of exploring forests and climbing mountains, with a full range of emotions visited throughout, dancing between the depths of Hell and the Pearly Gates of Heaven. … read more
Joshua James @ Velour 11.29
Velour has been bustling this year after being named Utah’s best music venue in 2012 by Salt Lake Magazine. It has been hosting up-and-coming acts from around Utah and continued its tradition of being a launch pad for bands to move on to the bigger and better (think Neon Trees, Imagine Dragons, Fictionists). Of all its successes this year, Joshua James’ triumphant CD release show(s) should be counted as one of the brightest. … read more
ROAD WARRIORS: Meet The Muscle Behind the Vans Warped Tour
FuseTV premieres their new, unscripted series, Warped Roadies, which follows pit reporters, stage managers, and the primary set-up crew responsible for keeping Warped Tour running without a hitch. Check out our interview with the Salt Lake based crew. … read more
National Music Reviews – December 2012
Reviews of new music from Dragonette, E.D. Sedgwick, Hostage Calm, Incantation, Indian Handcrafts, Night Moves, Sleep Maps, and many more are featured … read more
Top 5 Movies of 2012
Another year down and another Top 5 List for the film aficionados! Since we only have a small amount of time left before the volcanoes start erupting across the planet, here’s the list of 2012’s best and worst movie offerings … thus far! … read more
Turn Off the TV, Turn On the GV!
Welcome to GigViz, the live-streaming “virtual venue,” bringing the show to your screen in real time! There is no better birthplace than SLC, home to a thriving music and art scene. Sean Cochrane, the founder of GigViz, began formulating the project a little under a year ago. It was an invitation from a friend in Santa Monica to see a live show that ignited this mission. … read more
Top 5: White Lung
Where much new punk music is conflated with hardcore, stoner metal, indie, folk or pop-punk, White Lung have managed to pick up where mid-aughts bands left off, to push a straight-up punk sound into a different realm without interlacing their tunes with conventions from other genres on their sophomore release, Sorry. … read more
Top 5: Purity Ring
Shrines is a beautiful contradiction of icy, synthetic start-and-stops created by Corin Roddick, and the sugar-dipped ghost vocals of Megan James dissecting through the cold mass of chimes with awkward, gut-wrenching lyrics. Though the choppy hip hop beats, dubstep wobbles and breathy witch house elements initially draw the listener in with exterior superficiality, a few more close listens reveal a poetic push-and-pull between the instrumentals and songwriting that beg for deconstruction. … read more
Top 5: Japandroids
Celebration Rock is the musical equivalent of getting shitfaced with your friends and talking about past successes or ex-girlfriends, ending the night with drunken optimism about the future. Somewhere between post-rock and pop-punk, they are never trying too hard to be cool—it all seems genuine. … read more
Top 5: Evoken
“I will diminish those centuries and persecute those with quiet desperation,” bleeds a grumbled death roar from the title track off Evoken’s fifth album. Not only do the gloomy lyrics set the tone of the album with the starting song, but the music does as well. Atra Mors’ biggest success as an album is its gutsy equality of atmospheric, obliterating doom and brain-stem-carving memorability. … read more
Top 5: Eagle Twin
The fable of the crow continues in this year’s release, The Feather Tipped the Serpent’s Scale. Guitarist and vocalist Gentry Densely is a master storyteller, guiding listeners through his dark, mythical narrative with low, throaty vocals. On some tracks, he sings the part of the narrator, while in others, he sings in first person, detailing Crow’s battle against the sun and Crow’s metamorphosis into a snake … read more
Top 5: Crystal Castles
Ethan Kath begins with a heart-heavy siren—your chest caves as your ears ache to understand what is coming. You feel yourself stepping onto a spaceship, and, before you know it, you are counting down, beat by beat, three, two, one … blastoff. Vocalist Alice Glass’s signature, scathing voice yells, “I am the plague,” and you succumb to the darkness that they breathe. … read more
